


the minerva romantics

by nymphacae



Category: Mumintroll | Moomins Series - Tove Jansson
Genre: Kinda?????, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, also theyre clearly adults in this so i better not be seeing any clenched pearls, librarian!snufkin, mythology refrances as is my Brand. oops, reverse au, strangers to friends to What If We Kissed, vagabond!moomin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:36:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26370508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nymphacae/pseuds/nymphacae
Summary: snufkin runs a library
Relationships: Mumintrollet | Moomintroll/Snusmumriken | Snufkin
Comments: 12
Kudos: 45





	the minerva romantics

how everything trembles  
then settles  
from mere incidence into  
the lush of meaning.  


\- mary oliver

* * *

His chapter is like a riddle: a misanthropist owns a library for retired books.

There’s no attraction which draws people to his study, it’s clumped together on the far reaches of town as one is just leaving, so it’s not associated with the nicer-looking shops and inns. Not that Snufkin is a general target of bad gossip, but he’s kept within the same radius as a dying creep might be.

It’s not as though Snufkin is eccentric, not by appearance anyway — he wears nice button-downs which choke his neck and striped trousers, and the jewelry he wears looks as though he wears constellations in haloed light. He wears his hair back, pinned with braids, and he shaves his mane, and he smells of the dusted books he collects.

He’s a friendly fellow, should some venture into his haven for forgotten stories. Snufkin busies himself with his work, as he’s deeply fascinated by the novels he’ll collect from travellers or departing neighbors. They all hold lifetimes within them, and to see them discarded breaks his heart.

The ancient tales are pillared together in their ochre bookshelves, and read as often as he can manage. The most wilted of pages are given restoration with a steady quill and ink; although most would agree the books are so battered they might as well be given funerals, Snufkin makes it his sworn duty to make sure nothing is discarded.

“Just because something isn’t perfect doesn’t mean it doesn’t have anything to say,” he’d told a curious passerby, and that’s become his silent motto.

His home is pleasant; the interior is like a drab armoire he’s spiced up with bronze furniture and old herbs from the small garden out back. He dresses in the same earthy tones of the world around him, so he could nearly blend into the shelves, if he wanted.

Although Snufkin’s neighbors will give a queer once-over to his establishment — as they find anything he does strange and not of a mumrik, which crimps his lip a bit and makes him silently sour — they say nothing, and offer bits of gratitude he hungrily accepts. His preferences of likes, dislikes, and anything in-between is simply chased into the margins, and every extended paw is a privilege.

Snufkin really doesn’t mind being anything; the world is beautiful enough as it is, and every story he collects breathes enough life in them to last him years and years.

He doesn’t mind, for he lives a thousand meaningful lives between pages, chasing ancient tales so every voice that ought to scream, can do so.

Really, he doesn’t mind at all.

* * *

After closing hours, local baker Marmalade and her (second? Third??) wife will bring leftover pastries which fill the room with a fluffy, warm smell. They grow stale in Snufkin’s pantry more often than not — he often hates sugary treats — but he’s fond of the gesture, and so he’ll let them roam about and pick at his collection with passive commentary.

In the mornings, he’ll often leave the sweets beside an open window for visitors; the summer breeze helps to push the scent out into the streets, weaving through the lavender which hangs heavily over the shutters. The stray petals often float inside like stray butterflies, and Snufkin never has the heart to sweep them up.

He returns to work, restocking donated books and relishing in the breeze which rolls in and makes his drying herbs sway. Sunlight filters through the curtain of flowers and makes a pattern on his feet as he tidies up, a hum dancing on his breath.

Hours pass, and he receives no company, but Snufkin never minds. He completes his tasks right at lunchtime, and goes upstairs to put a kettle over the stove for an afternoon tea break.

When he returns, there’s a large figure blocking the sun-filled windows and he nearly trips over his feet with alarm.

It takes a second to register that there is a guest in his library - an unknown moomin guest at that. What a rarity! Moomins are often off in their own corners, barely travelling, and here one is in the doorway, chomping away at his treats!

Moomins ought to be concocted of fine-spun sugar and clouds, Snufkin thinks; they’re fluffy and kind, their coats are smooth and brushed like they’ve never experienced a tussle in their life.

This moomin is nothing like that! His fur is trodden and caked with dirt, spiked up in odd directions from sweat. His tail, lacking any sort of bow, looks thin and prickly like it’s been plucked at. There are indents in his coat, where Snufkin presumes scars to be hiding.

In addition, there’s a very large backpack slung beside the front door, and the moomin’s spine ripples in a way to show he hasn’t exhaled in a long while.

Resuming courtesy, Snufkin shakes his head and resumes down the steps to where the moomin can spot him — and he does with an undignified yelp that makes Snufkin feel better.

“I don’t have many visitors,” he explains smoothly. “But I would appreciate that you don’t stuff yourself, just in case.”

The moomin looks redhanded, but quickly recovers with a cough. “H-hullo!” he says brightly, mouth full. “Did you happen to make these? They’re marvelous.”

“No, they’re from the bakery across the street,” Snufkin answers. “If you were going to ask for their recipes, I wouldn’t bother.”

He hums in understanding. “Oh, sure, delicacies like these ought to be locked up tight! Much like...well, your books!”

The moomin gestures madly like Snufkin wasn’t aware, and he has it in him to still be amicable. “With that appetite of yours, I do suggest staying away from the books until you have a hold on your stomach. You have something in your teeth by the way.”

He blinks. “Really?” Rudely, he scavenges for the danish clinging to his gums, and Snufkin looks away.

“Have a look around while you’re here,” he suggests, walking round to where his desk sits. “I think you’d be surprised at the collection, mister…”

“Just Moomintroll is fine,” the traveller answers with his fingers in his teeth.

“Alright, then. Moomintroll, if you have any questions about return policies, you can find me right here,” to emphasize, Snufkin settles himself into his chair and clicks a pen. He tucks some paperwork close to him and adds on, “And, please be careful with the books, some are more fragile than others.”

Moomintroll nods. “Thank you very much, erm…”

“Snufkin.”

“Thank you, Snufkin! I’ll have a looksee.”

True to type, Moomin does scour the walls for a good hour or so, flipping through stories, and he holds such fascination for each book he comes across that Snufkin can’t help but watch on from the corner of his eye. There’s a particular noise that the traveller makes when he hits a certain note in a story, and Snufkin wishes to bottle it up and save it somewhere.

Most refuse to glance over the dusty books with anything more than pity; it’s refreshing, to see Moomintroll display the awe that the library deserves.

It must not be as long as Snufkin presumed, because Moomintroll claps his final book shut and trapises over to the pastry dish again, which still garners his interest.

“Quite a sweet tooth there,” Snufkin remarks from his seat, eyebrow raised.

Moomintroll shrugs. “Us moomins have mad cravings for sugar! And since my travels lasted longer and all, I’d very much like to indulge — crackers and lingonberries, well, they aren’t the same as a nice pulla roll.”

“You go on travels?” Snufkin inquires politely. “What sort?”

“Any!” The moomin’s eyes gleam like unearthed treasure, and Snufkin knows he’s struck a very passionate chord. “Any and all travels, wherever I please! Whatever I want to do, I can simply go and do it — oh, it is wonderful, and you learn so many things, I think you’d like it, Snufkin. You seem like the type to collect all these adventures, after all!”

(That does sound nice.)

“That sounds...grueling,” Snufkin decides.

“For you, maybe,” the visitor huffs. “Have you never wondered what it may be like to sleep under the stars?”

(Perhaps.) “I have everything I need under this roof, thank you.”

Something in his voice must cause Moomintroll to retract a bit; Snufkin has to intervene before he feels needles in his fur about it.

“Would you like any tea?” he asks.

Moomintroll looks thoughtful. “Have you got any coffee instead?”

“I might, if you’re willing to trade some stories in exchange for a cup.”

He smiles. “That sounds wonderful.”

* * *

Snufkin can count on one paw the visitors he lets into his flat; it often receives the same scrunched noses from the first floor, as most are just confused by his minimal setup — he argues that there is no one to impress with tables or chairs.

So he settles on a scratched-up trestle table in the middle of the floor to set the dishware onto. They both sit cross-legged atop old throw pillows, and the carpet beneath them is doused pale from hundreds of washes that its pattern is indecipherable.

Moomintroll indulges shamelessly in the biscuit tin Snufkin has brought out whilst he pours oolong for his own mug, covering the teapot with a cosy and prying a claw into an orange he fetched from the larder.

“Sugar?” Snufkin nods toward the jar in the middle.

“Please.”

He slides it in Moomintroll’s direction, watching as he scoops in heaping amounts of the stuff until the coffee is essentially liquid candy.

They nibble on their respective dishes for a bit — Snufkin licks the juices from his fingers before they burn his blistered palms, even swallowing the seeds so he won’t spit them in front of the guest.

“I’m curious about your library,” Moomintroll admits, wiping crumbs off his muzzle. “I’ve never seen a settled mumrik keep such a clean shop before.”

“I don’t consider that a compliment,” Snufkin warns.

“Ah. Sorry, I understand,” his ears flatten apologetically. “I get double-takes as well. Moomins are supposed to be soft and homey, right?”

Snufkin, unsure of how to follow that up, looks down and draws mindless things along the dust of the table. He begins, “I just collect whatever most will throw away, and I give it a second chance.”

Moomintroll looks touched. “That’s a lovely way of putting it. I did notice that many of your books were very old.”

“It bothers me,” he admits, “how willing many people are to forget history just because it no longer suits them! We’re all quietly interconnected by the stories we choose to pass on — even if it adapts over time, wouldn’t you say that the origins are just as important?”

Moomintroll takes a deliberately-long sip of his coffee before answering, smacking a wet lip. “You’re very passionate about it, so I’m obliged to agree with you.”

“You don’t have to agree with me just because my tail is in a twist,” Snufkin reminds him.

“I’m agreeing with you because I think you’re angry and you have a point!” he replies. “It’s like...raising things from the dead. Whole villages, or people, or heck, even ideas! You’re a real necromancer, Snufkin.”

To emphasize, Moomintroll wags his fingers to pantomime a ghastly creep, and Snufkin feels a surge of something very bright bubbling in his stomach.

As the day lazily passes, and their respective cups are long since empty, Snufkin learns more about the travelling moomin.

He says that once upon a time, he was left to the waves by accident or malicious fate, and raised himself in a lighthouse with his stubby paws and baby-blue fur till he was shaped into a man with a child’s body. He says that there was so much hate clotted up in him, for a very long time, and a moomin is supposed to be a tender thing which riled him up further. He complained, and he felt sour inside and out, but somehow he survived.

He says he doesn’t know if he had any parents to begin with, or the world spat him out as a cruel joke, but there’s a very obvious hole in him and he wants an answer for it.

He says that he left the lighthouse as a teen with his whole world fitting into a backpack, and he traveled till his paw pads were rougher than stones; he’s seen many marvelous things: black beaches, snow-capped mountain ranges, ferocious beasts of the sea...and he loves his adventures, truly!

But…

“But?” Snufkin pries.

Moomintroll looks very discomforted, shuffling in his seat like his bottom has fallen asleep. “I’m...searching for something, you know? And I can’t place it precisely, and whatever it is, I won’t rest until I’ve found it.”

“I see,” Snufkin muses.

“Have you ever been touched, Snufkin?”

It’s a crooked question, and it sounds like it’s been stuck in him for a long time; Snufkin feels like there’s grit in his fur he cannot shake off, he doesn’t understand this reaction.

“I had to have been at some point,” he plucks his words carefully, slow. “Haven’t I?”

(They tell him that he was left in a basket.)

Moomintroll just makes a noncommittal noise at that. He’s staring at the window, looking elsewhere with tired, glassy eyes.

It’s getting late.

“Have you got any place to stay tonight?” Snufkin asks him, arching his back, yanking the pins and needles from his muscles.

Moomintroll glances over. “Hm? Oh...I noticed an inn while I was passing through. Why?”

“No reason,” he answers. Standing, he scoops up the dirty dishes. “The Hemul there is very kind, don’t leave your bed unkempt or he’ll charge you extra.”

“Sounds good.”

“I’ve let time get away from me,” Snufkin sighs, mostly to himself, as he plots his dishes in the small sink. “I have many things I need to do before it’s completely dark. Thank you for keeping me company, Moomintroll.”

Moomintroll, in compliance, rises to his feet and prepares to leave. Snufkin offers him the rest of the desserts stuffed in the pantry, and Moomintroll takes a book entitled _Princess Tuvstarr._ Snufkin assures him it will be a worthwhile read.

He tucks the book away in his pack, accompanied by a small, slender pair of black paws which shoot out from the pockets and help him store the novel safely. (“Who was that??” Snufkin near exclaims. Moomintroll blinks. “Oh, him? He stays in my bags and journeys with me.”

“Has he got a name?”

“I don’t know.”

That seemed to be the end of that.)

Snufkin sends him off with a wave and safe travels, and Moomintroll wishes him well; the chapter closes.

* * *

He’s very surprised when it’s reopened, and Moomintroll returns to the library.

Snufkin fails to regard a passage of spring to summer till Moomin is at his doorstep crowing about how joyous it is to be back after such a long venture through meadows and towns. He hands his book back, saying, “You were right, it’s a wonderful read! But I did feel bad for the poor princess...everything swept away from her like that.”

“The elk was very clear that the world would burn her, if she continued to be kind and naive,” Snufkin rebukes lightly.

“So being kind is a weakness?” Moomintroll asks, setting the book on the front desk as Snufkin signs it back in.

“Being kind is a candle and the world wants to swallow it up.”

“Well!” he huffs. “A morbid man, aren’t you Snufkin? Who’s gone and thrown _your_ golden heart into the lake?”

Snufkin doesn’t respond, but the corners of his mouth twitch — Moomintroll had indeed read the book, and that makes him happy.

Once he’s finished re-registering the book, he asks, “Would you like coffee?”

“Hm, have you got any alcohol, actually?”

Snufkin never presumed him to be the drinking type, so it shocks him a bit. “I...might have some palm wine left, I barely touch the stuff.”

“No?” Moomintroll leans forward with his elbows on the table; he stares like Snufkin is something fascinating, and it makes him feel odd.

“I’d much rather be scolded for my smoking than any drinking problems, thank you,” he retorts with a smirk. This earns him a kind laugh.

“If you haven’t got any wine on you, that’s fine, I’ll take coffee or tea,” the traveller says politely. His waterline bends with his raised cheeks. “It’d just be nice to talk with you again.”

"Oh," Snufkin says dumbly; the much-to-blithe proclamation heats him up to his ears. "Alright." 

* * *

Before he leaves, he fishes through his bags again, and pulls out a book to put in Snufkin’s paws. It reads _Piggsvin Family Tree: Of Toffles and Misabels._

Snufkin looks up quizzically, as if the sentiment can’t compute.

“For your collection,” Moomintroll chirps. “I toured through a few bookstores on my way back, searching for the most decrepit book of them all to give them a better home with you!”

(A subsection of Snufkin, that he never knew of, makes itself known in the pit of his stomach, it swishes around and rises up like a carbonated drink fizzing. It’s not unpleasant.)

“You’re a kind troll,” he says gently, eyes on the fragile pages.

“A regular Prince Cottongrass, that’s me!” Moomintroll jokes. Snufkin doesn’t chuckle, but he does feel warm and lovely in every corner of his chest, like sunlight bleeding straight into a dusted and empty room.

They depart again, and although neither make a verbal vow of sorts, Snufkin has no doubt the separation isn’t permanent.

* * *

He learns more and more about Moomintroll the vagabond, the more he visits.

Snufkin has a great dislike of people because they cannot be pinned down and taxidermized, and studied all the way through. They’re kaleidoscope of emotions and _things_ , greedy things that pluck things till they're dry and want and want and want. Maybe if he was raised with people and had a good shot at puzzling them out...maybe. Maybe it'd be different, and he wouldn't see them as such terrible enigmas.

But with Moomin, every layer of him is a new wonder to explore. He desperately wishes to pry him open like an old novel and read every paragraph in him, but even then Snufkin thinks that won’t be enough to completely translate him, front to back.

(He told Moomintroll this out of the blue, and amongst his embarrassment Moomintroll laughed, “I’d rather my insides be a terrarium of sorts. Like a walking garden!”

Snufkin adored him terribly right then.)

Moomintroll talks like he’s jumping from stone-to-stone in his head over a river: babbling whatever comes to mind, as though he’s never garnered such an intrigued audience before. As though he’s never spouted anything more than the fundamentals of his backstory.

Snufkin knows this much: Moomintroll never talks badly of Grokes when he encounters them. He loves the sea like it’s a home, and is thrilled when a path he’s on turns into a shoreline.

The shadowy critter that follows him is his only companion since he was a baby, but he’s never asked him for his name (“Why come?” “I’m just not ready to learn it yet, it’s difficult to explain. Maybe soon.”)

He’d romanced a seahorse once, but it was never meant to be; they still exchange letters sometimes. Because, Moomintroll is very keen to make everyone he burrows in his heart matter; no matter how poorly a relationship was chipped off, he writes to them, and worships their time spent together.

He loves people very much, and parties with them wherever he can. He dances horribly, but doesn’t notice until someone says so.

He loves to cook but believes himself to be poor at it. 

He loves wearing bows on his ears, and can’t stand the texture of lace.

He was in the hospital for stitches in Peru, after a rockfall left him half-dead. He pressed the flowers he received from nurses into a book he carries round to this day.

His favorite color is the bright teal of seawater. He wishes to learn how to build ships.

He wants children.

He wants a family.

They talk over books, over tea, over watering plants — mundane things are given a new excitement to them as Moomintroll jokes around, or asks a silly questions. The air is pungent with plumes of laughter they both share. When Moomintroll reads over books, Snufkin reads the history of his paws; he’s found that he has the teeniest speck of green in his eyes, when he tilts his head just so.

People are libraries, too.

* * *

“I think you were right,” Moomintroll says from behind him, “that it was Orpheus’s fault from the beginning. He didn’t have faith in death nor his lover, that tramp!”

Snufkin hums, but keeps himself still, spine straight and paws clasped together on his thigh. He’s facing a window so his view doesn’t grow tiresome, and he admires the purple draperies swaying outside

Moomintroll’s fingers are gossamer as he trails them through Snufkin’s long hair, threading them into tight plaits. There are threads of auburn which are still crinkled from the last set of braids, and Moomin seems personally determined to smooth it out like creased silk. Snufkin restrains a purr from the touch, from _being_ touched.

"The moral is that love is a fool's errand," Snufkin rebukes. "Even in the face of death, it conquers, and yet it takes away crueller than _any_ death Eurydice could have been given."

"So you're agreeing?"

"I'm agreeing that if someone is stupid with their love that they will suffer from it."

Moomintroll thinks on this a bit. Snufkin feels like his warning has fallen on defiant ears.

“Would _you_ look back?” Moomintroll asks; Snufkin winces at an accidental tug against his neck. “For anything?”

Snufkin leans forward slightly, his elbows catching on the sill. He squanders his first answer, and replies, “I don’t know.”

“You say that often,” Moomintroll comments, and there’s a frown evident in him.

“I’m fine with saying it,” Snufkin retorts. “Would you rather me be dishonest?”

“I’d rather you know what you want.”

“I don’t _have_ any wants,” he says, sharp on the syllables, and he retracts any firmer tone of voice with an internal sigh. “I have _needs,_ and they are met. And I have my books. I'm happy with what I'm given."

Moomintroll doesn’t reply, but to fill the air he clicks his tongue and murmurs, close to Snufkin’s hair that it feels hot, “I have too many wants, so I can never understand.”

“And that,” Snufkin says, “is why you shouldn’t blame Orpheus for his own faults. His love was so great that it killed his own wife — pitiful, isn’t it?”

Moomintroll grows irritable at that for a reason he can’t pinpoint; he glares darkly at the trickling crisscross of auburn, united in his palms, and resumes his busy work.

The shadowy creep climbs into Snufkin’s lap, and is idly pet while Snufkin gazes out of his narrow window, into a town with dark pools of shadow collecting along the roads, from overhead houses and sparse trees. The sun will be setting soon; its light collects behind Snufkin’s eyes as he squints against it, eyelashes tickling his higher cheek.

An hour of repose, steady purrs and caresses, passes with the darkening outside, and Moomintroll takes much too long to complete his craftsmanship; he ties the ends with a ribbon peeled into two, tucking them over Snufkin’s shoulder so the other can see.

“Very nice,” the other appraises.

“I wish you could accept it,” Moomintroll murmurs at last, his stare unceasing.

Snufkin turns. “Accept what?”

“How interesting you are,” he answers gently. “I could read every book here, nothing will capture my interest like you have.”

He watches his face turn a hue of red, sun-blotched and awestruck, and Moomin has to look away from it. His words, forming a myriad of happy soap-bubbles frothing up the other’s throat, ready to burst out.

Snufkin rises, and the creep returns to Moomintroll’s side. He smooths out his gown like there’s something amiss with it.

“I’d turn back for you,” Moomintroll says. “I’d want to know you were still there.”

Snufkin collects his paws at his front. “Of course I’d be…”

There’s birdsong is his rapid pulse, and he feels like a crisp new chapter has been turned right before him, without warning; he could hate Moomintroll for that, if he wanted.

“You can stay here,” Snufkin whispers. “If you’d like.”

The air feels weighted, and then a great paw curls over his like selfish ivy, encasing him, and Snufkin realizes he will never recover from it. A fire’s been set on his heels.

“Thank you.”

* * *

Snufkin could best describe the sacred act of ‘fooling around’ much akin to wading through lakewater without feeling the sandy bottom. The submersion of one’s head beneath the luring waves, a weightless sensation.

It doesn’t happen all at once. There’s lingering touches, hazy ‘what-if’s collected in the hindbrain, and the stares that are so heavy with want that each head turns away, ashamed.

The collision of desperate lips hits like a barrage of flames, and the _want_ travels up the ladder of Snufkin’s ribcage and pounds against the other’s chest. He never realized how _hungry_ he was.

He archives the noises Moomintroll makes against his teeth and swallows it, with practiced paws peeling back clothing like pages, sighing passages in the deep caverns of bone. When held, he feels shapeless as syllables, untranslatable like a god’s name.

These nocturne stories which will never be written onto paper, and can only be read once — he devours them whole.

No matter what hour it will be, Moomintroll elects to stay overnight like a gentleman, and tidies up any furniture knocked over, apologizing for any scratches he can’t erase from the walls. Snufkin watches his attempts to clean with lax amusement, smiling stupidly at nothing.

(He hopes someone heard, and that it made them angry.)

It’s a precious hour to reflect in bed, pulling their heads from the depths of the water. Snufkin is too tired to read the night away, so he draws maps in the wooden ceiling overhead.

Moomintroll yawns with all his teeth gleaming in the moonlight. “You taste like soot.”

Snufkin is too tired for banter. He turns over and says, “Yeah?”

“Soot and...well, something else,” they roll over to meet foreheads, creating a liminal space filled with hot breaths and dewdrops of kisses. “Chestnuts, maybe? I don’t know, it’s homey, whatever it is.”

“I guess you’ll have to keep tasting until you find out,” he responds coyly.

He doesn’t expect the genuine, panting laugh. “I guess so,” he hums.

(Snufkin thinks he tastes like milk and honey, but he’d have to write it down in order to say it.)

* * *

“For you,” Moomintroll says as Shadow hands off another book from the caverns of his bag. “I know you’re fond of fairytales.”

Snufkin flips the hardcover over and is overjoyed at the title. “Petrionsella!” he cries, and eagerly opens the bronze papers to see the text smeared with age, but he sees glimpses of the Italian language.

“You’d mentioned its predecessors once,” Moomintroll shrugs, but he looks proud of himself. “You refuse any modern classics, you cryptkeeper.”

“Moomintroll, dearest, modern translations are watered-down tales,” Snufkin answers. “I just like stories how they’re meant to be written.”

“You really are a cryptkeeper.”

“Color me medieval, then,” he retorts kindly.

Moomintroll snorts, all in honey-sweet affection; Snufkin misses him already.

Putting the book on his desk, he hurdles into the other’s chest and tucks himself deep into the steady thumps of his heartbeat, purring wildly. Moomintroll’s paw drapes tightly over him, with one steady on the small of his neck.

“You’re such an odd thing,” Moomintroll breathes into the column of his neck. “I adore it more than stars.”

“Do be careful,” Snufkin muffles into his scruff.

“If I were careful, my dear, I wouldn’t have many stories when I come back.”

“Humor me, then.”

Moomintroll exhales. “I’ll be safe as I can. For you.”

“For me.”

“Of course. Always.”

They peel away, softly, and only stay anchored in their joined paws. Snufkin feels a corkscrew in his guts when Moomintroll eventually pulls away his hold.

“When you’re ready,” Moomintroll whispers, “I’ll make room for you.”

Snufkin looks away. “I know.”

Moomintroll waits, hoping for more than that. There is none, and it’s getting to be late.

“You really are remarkable, Snufkin,” he says. “You ought to let yourself be.”

He leaves. Snufkin watches him till he rounds a corner and closes the door, locking it.

* * *

The town is overrun with dapper business, and it has no time to amuse itself with a library no one visits anymore. Bad impression for tourists, maybe; or just, aptly, a waste of space by others’ standards.

Snufkin returns from the market and finds the red-lettered note pinned right over his ‘closed’ sign; they hadn’t even bothered to put it in his letterbox.

He has a week to leave.

It passes in a blur, a muddy afterimage; Snufkin vaguely recalls stuffing books into boxes that they didn’t belong in. Some sympathetic folks step forward and offer the nicer books loving homes, but most will be sent into the town’s hands and decay, as most things in public domain do.

Snufkin packs until all the shelves are empty; his clothes are ruffled and his hair is undone. He smells disgustingly of mugwort.

He feels like he’s looking at something dead and naked, when he steps downstairs into the remnants of the library. He’d promised a sanctuary, and yet…

He keeps whatever fits into his knapsack, and is mindful that all of Moomintroll’s gifts will travel with him, wherever he ends up. Morbidly, he imagines his corpse in a thick forestry, unheard and forgotten, and it scares him to the core. His vision trembles, and he can’t sleep.

When the pale sun emerges from morning fog, he’s already stepped out of the house and locks the door behind him. Marmalade emerges with a satchel hot with cross-buns, crying like she knows him, and promises shelter if he were to ever return.

When she leaves, thank the stars, blowing her nose dramatically into a handkerchief, Snufkin nails a small note to the door, for Moomintroll:

_Up north. Come find me._

(Please.)

Snufkin rolls his shoulders, strained with his belongings, and exits the town as quietly as he came.

He understands now why Orpheus looked back.

* * *

Snufkin travels on a beaten path, moving with the rolling hills and never daring to part from it. He worries what is outside of his horizon, and to stray from it is too vast and too cavernous, it consumes him like a night terrors.

He feels like a song out of tune, or a clock that chimes too early; his internal machinery is flooded with wrongness, out of focus, misguided, lost. _Incredibly_ lost. He doesn’t even have a compass.

Snufkin moves with a frostbitten soul, knowing that should he stop and rest he will never get up. His pickings are thin as he nibbles on oats and Marmalade’s treats.

The dirt road ends in a crosshatch among woods, and when he breaks free of the ravines and thickets he’s in a bare valley that stretches over acres and acres like a grass blanket. Specks of meadow flowers color the area like paint flicked off of fingers, and nestled on a hilltop: an old cottage.

The house has a chipped blue roof, and open windows which looked fondly on every direction of the overgrown valley. It’s a very old moominhouse, abandoned by some unknown forces. There are weeds sprouting beneath the cobblestone, and every wet surface is layered with limescale and mold. It smells of linseed and a tangible loneliness which clung to the back of Snufkin’s lungs — amidst the mildew.

First day, his bags fall sloppily to the floor, his tongue tucked between his teeth, and an enormous sigh of surrender escapes.

Second day, he sleeps and sleeps.

Sixth day, he gets to work.

Days meld themselves into weeks, and Snufkin scrubs the house’s insides until he feels like his arms could fall off. The more stubborn spots of dirt he allows to stay, for the sake of his sanity; the faucets are clean although useless, and he gathers water from a stream right down the hill. He learns to fish, and learns to savor the taste of it. He dries the herbs which sprout from odd areas of the cottage, hanging them over the foyer like trellis-work.

The books find a home in one of the many empty shelves lined along the wall; there isn’t much room for them to take, but setting them up feels like a promise.

It’s not a home yet; the lack of memories feels sharp as bleach, and when Snufkin remembers it he feels the stinging urge to weep. He doesn’t understand, how Moomintroll can sleep bunker to bunker without a tinge of loss.

 _Moomintroll_ … He hasn’t found him yet. That hurts too.

Libraries and vagabonds are such odd things to grieve, and so Snufkin decides he will not. This house needs him, his stories need to be read, and he wants to live in whatever crevice he can claw himself into, for now.

* * *

One nightly hour, there’s a knock at the door.

Snufkin is upstairs reading, and he shimmies out of bed to search for the most approachable clothes, shouting “Yes, coming!”

In some backdrop of his mind, he knows what this will become. He scurries down the loud steps and swings open the door with the vigor of a starving man offered food.

He waits on the stoop, which is too small for his size so his tail hangs over the side into flowerbeds. He looks spiked-up and trampled like a picked blanket, and his eyes hold many labyrinths behind them; he’s tired, Snufkin can see that.

Shadow is by his side, looking concerned and attentive to his companion.

“I, uh, saw your note,” Moomintroll says, playing with his paws.

“So it seems,” Snufkin replies.

A chorus of cicadas swells in the quiet that follows, both sets of eyes determined to not make contact.

Snufkin begins: “Good evening, Moomintroll.”

The other looks eased, dropping his muscles and allowing a grin to stretch his cheeks.

“Hi,” he murmurs, tender as porcelain. “May I come in?”

Snufkin feels something in him throb with delight. He steps aside for the other. “Wipe your feet,” he advises lightly.

* * *

He’ll never stock up the courage to tell Moomintroll his relationship with sex, and even then he likely won’t understand it. He doesn’t know how to phrase it, how he adores being stamped and smothered with kisses like a death sentence, or the pulse between rolling bodies, and that bright feeling of new.

They touch like they’ve never been touched before, and the act itself becomes sacrilegious. Moomintroll’s mouth is hot wax against his skin, inscribing kisses like braille into the treaches of his fur. Moomin rewrites him, again and again, beneath those strong fingertips which are so calloused but so kind. Whatever words they create, pouring from one body to the next like liquid light, Snufkin could never translate it.

The only benefit, of all of this, is now they can be as loud and primal as they please, because no one will hear. They wail and sing like bells in an old cathedral, and it is proud and it is disgusting and it is raw and it is wonderful.

It takes a while for Snufkin to stitch his body together again, when all is said and quiet again. Their tails are braided beneath the covers, and as the lovely, loose sensation dissolves he realizes he feels disgusting, and he gets up without looking over.

After a lazy rundown with a washcloth, Snufkin walks outside in his thin nightclothes, relieved at the breath of night air. He lights his pipe and listens to the burning crinkle of leaves in the chamber. When ready, he drinks the dark fragrance collecting in his mouth, dissolving his thoughts.

Moomintroll joins him when the bowl is halfway done, crouching down with a delicate wince to his movements. He glances over once the smoke hits his nostrils, looking cute and displeased.

“Are you going to chide me about my smoking habits again, love?” Snufkin chuckles. “It’s going to ruin my afterglow, mind you.”

“Well, _my_ afterglow is already ruined by the stench!” Moomintroll rebukes, but he’s smiling.

“Oh, _do_ go on, my heart is _aflutter_ with all this sweet talk.”

He rolls his eyes. “Fine. Your lungs are so black I could rub them together and start a fire.”

Snufkin snickers, humoring Moomintroll with a longer inhale than the last, so his next breath clouds the moon. “At least then you’ll have a better igniter than your pinecones.”

“Pinecones are _excellent_ for fires, excuse you!”

“Oh, I know, dear. But you look so silly when you do it.”

Moomintroll’s nose crinkles; his grin hasn’t waned once. “Perhaps you can come with me and teach me how to do it, then.”

Snufkin lowers his pipe. “Perhaps…”

The world hums for a bit, night-bugs crying in the thickets. The sway of firs encasing the moominhouse raps against windows like it’s demanding to be let in.

Their paws meet like magnets.

“Come with me, Snufkin,” Moomintroll says.

“I can’t,” Snufkin sighs. “You know I can’t.”

“Why not?” He sounds hurt, and Snufkin winces. “I don’t understand why you’re so scared to live.”

“I have things to do.”

“Like what? Tending to your five books?”

“Moomin,” Snufkin’s voice drops, and he has the worst pressure right behind his eyes. “You know that it’s more than that. I just _can’t_ , I’ve spent so long making this name for myself, and I love what I do. Even if no one else will, or _has_. I’m more than what I want.”

“But what _do_ you want?” Moomintroll presses. “Do you even know? Don’t you want to live and find out?”

(Yes.) “I don’t.”

“Bullocks.”

“Bullocks yourself!” Snufkin nearly springs out of his seat in annoyance, snapping an exasperated, pained glare over to his startled companion. “And why do you travel, then? What are you looking for that you can’t find with me?”

Moomintroll doesn’t answer right away.

Snufkin tames the boiling in his blood, clenching his pipe tight as a dagger, and gives a very sharp huff away from Moomin's direction.

“I...I just want to be held,” Moomintroll admits quietly. “I want to be _seen._ I want...I want to be loved enough that my heart can settle down.” He chuckles, humorless. “You know, out loud that sounds daft, but...

Snufkin tightens his paw’s grip until he sees Moomin’s jawline square.

“Then _stay with me,_ ” he begs. “Settle down _here_. We'll make gardens, and cook and clean and fish and...whatever else you can think to do, we can do it. Maybe collect books, so you don’t miss out on any adventures!”

“Snufkin,” Moomintroll sighs.

“I would _try,_ ” his voice breaks, wetly. “I don't...I've never known what to give what I haven't been given myself, but...I would give it my honest-to-gods best of tries, to make you feel wonderful. I don’t always know what I want, but...I want _this._ ”

A paw captures his cheek; Snufkin leans into it like hot wax near candlelight, and there’s a heavy sadness which pools inside him and makes his face feel pinched and hot. He's never felt _anything_ so close to being licked by flames.

“You already make me feel wonderful,” Moomintroll whispers.

Snufkin cuts him off sharply. “But it’s not enough.”

“Snufkin—”

He pulls away and towers over Moomintroll, flicking ash from his trousers and dumping the remains from the pipe over his garden.

“Come inside soon,” he says. “It’s getting cold.”

He hopes the quick slam of the door makes Moomintroll wince.

* * *

Autumn comes, and Moomintroll leaves. The pressed bedsheets are cold when Snufkin wakes one morning, arm outstretched to where the other’s shoulder would be. He stares at the space, tapping his fingers and counting backwards from seven, multiple times. His head and heart are empty caskets.

Suppose all the existential pillow-talk and pleads did nothing to assuage him; Snufkin thought Moomintroll would’ve known better this time. He didn’t even leave a book in his wake.

The cottage feels like all the windows have been thrust open, and there’s an endless draft that shivers him. All the little creeps outside are leaving, too, so only the whistling grass makes for company.

Snufkin shuts all the curtains and is imprisoned in quiet. His bookshelves are skeletal, and he falls to the ground and sobs with hooks snagging his belly.

This loneliness, he’d been born with it. And for so long, he’d painted over it, glossing over his own wants, his pleas to _leave,_ and all these years collecting purpose after purpose as a haven for these novels...all for nothing, in the end.

His life never mattered. By surrendering to stories bigger than himself, he survived.

Snufkin doesn’t leave his bed for a long time, and the furniture gathers dust. He wishes that mumriks were hibernators, so that he could fall into sleep wounded but dreaming, and he could wake up in a different, warmer world.

He smokes pine needles, salvaged from the woods, just in case. But all it does is mock the underside of his tongue with a bitter aftertaste.

He thought his backsteps from the world were something heraldic, admirable. He sees it now as a defiant act of ignoring a wound.

* * *

Amongst the filmy grain of sleep, Snufkin hadn’t noticed something that hadn’t been at one of the tables — it was in one of three of the empty guest rooms.

It’s a leatherbound book. A long-dead sprig of lavender was slipped underneath the belt; there was no title.

Every page is empty save for a note on the underside of the front cover, in the bottom right:

__

_Snufkin,_

_I hope the world you write about is as kind to you as you are to it._

_When I find you again, these pages better be brimming with your adventures!_

_All my love and more, Moomintroll : )_

— Damn that bastard.

* * *

Snufkin begins to write.

In spite, he writes things insanely uninteresting: _January, wiped a bug off kitchen window. Running low on turmeric powder. How to spell silhouette: C-Y-L-O-U-L-U-H-E-T._

But, reading it all over, Snufkin finds a chain griping his mind loosen its grip, and that makes him angry too.

Unwillingly, the text blooms into something fascinating. Pressed flowers, poetry in the margins (nothing good, but something _there_ ), and endless bouts of twaddle. How pretty the vase on the table looks in the sunlight. What bees might be thinking.

He writes to Moomintroll, on how he misses him in a hundred different ways. Each ache is a new passage.

He writes to himself. He asks, _What do you want to do next?_ and waits for an answer to appear before him.

Outside the snow melts into newborn greenery, and Snufkin sits beneath the trees writing like he’s never lived until now. The world has unfurled like it never has before.

And, slowly, but very, very surely, the burden of a thousand stories locked in a thousand chambers begins to melt.

* * *

Snufkin leaves on a soupy, humid summer morning. There is little to pack, and he leaves behind a few books for the next visitor, leaving instructions on how to care for them. Their loss is still like losing teeth, but it’s a manageable pain this time.

Just in case, he writes instructions on his preplanned steps to the next town over. 

_Come and find me,_ he thinks, but doesn't write. _Come and want me like I want you._

He hasn’t seen Moomintroll in years, but Snufkin still leaves a note for him, nailed to the door; he refuses to be left behind.

The horizon stretches before him like blank pages, and he feels refreshed in this new duty. There is not a moment he wishes to miss.

* * *

Baker. Blacksmith. Musician. Docker. Fisherman. Friend.

Snufkin wears these titles like golden badges pinned to his breast; he’s filled two whole journals with letters and stories which carry a heartbeat. Every life he meets is small, but they fit between his pages just fine.

He sees many sights, and learns many different instruments and songs that creatures of all sizes flock to. He recalls the legacy of stories he could not carry with him over campfires, and his listeners trill with delight. He realizes that he loves being listened to just as much as he loves listening.

Snufkin’s books he carries are not the same as the ones he left home with; they’ve been traded out, borrowed, stolen, or lost altogether. The novels melt together, and their arcs trail behind him like the smoke from his pipe as he walks. A thousand different years of history and adventure cling to him; the veins of his small legacy trail over the earth

And, written on the back cover of every book, he writes to Moomintroll: _Find me._ He hands them off much more easily; there is bound to be a line he will cross back into Moomintroll's world, if he keeps extending a paw and searching. He has a want for him that could fill oceans upon oceans, and there is much to do _with_ a love like that. So he leaves a map for him, for the journey home.

He feels bottomless, infinite. A love for everything glories deep in his pulse, and Snufkin knows that as long as he lives, so will his library, and so will everything he ever adored.

* * *

(Epilogue: a vagabond walks into a bar, and asks very smugly for a glass of whiskey.

Scene: a murmur of crowds which dulls in comparison to the light filling Snufkin’s ears: a feeling that comes easier than breathing. He is cleaning a glass five, thirty times, and his new customer props up an elbow with a barely-restrained smile threatening to hurt his cheeks.

“Some whiskey, please. And a story,” he says. “I’ve been told you’re amazing with those.”

Snufkin says, “I have a few up my sleeve, I’ve been saving them for someone special.”

He leans forward. Undulating love pours back and forth between them.

“Tell me,” he replies with a smile.

Snufkin does.)


End file.
